Arise
by alienyouthct
Summary: Leaving behind the familiarity of the Cosmodrome and its surroundings, one Ghost finds itself wandering a bit further afield in search of its fated Guardian… and finding something unlike anything it has ever seen before.


Title: _Arise  
_ Author: JoeHundredaire  
Rating: R/FR18  
Disclaimer: _Frozen_ and its associated characters and concepts are the property of Walt Disney Animation Studios, and I suppose we should give Hans Christian Andersen a nod for being the author of the story that inspired it. _Destiny_ , Guardians, Ghosts, and all other related concepts are the property of Bungie, who is very good at sucking money out of those of us who play their game and I am very jealous of them because of that. Not mine, don't sue, and so forth and so on.  
Summary: Leaving behind the familiarity of the Cosmodrome and its surroundings, one Ghost finds itself wandering a bit further afield in search of its fated Guardian… and finding something unlike anything it has ever seen before.  
Joe's Note: With _The Taken King_ now available for all five platforms, my friends and I have been diving back into _Destiny_ a bit more as of late. I haven't upgraded yet, but the game-sized expansion has dramatically reinvented the way even the core game and first two smaller expansions are played. For a change of pace, I decided to put together a Warlock… and then the intro got me thinking. Your Guardian is a revived corpse. A long dead corpse at that. Doesn't that just scream crossover potential? I mean, as long as it takes place on Earth and the character isn't immortal… _Destiny_ can be the future of that property, and that character can be resurrected. And so this happened.  
Dedications & Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Judedeath, Ken, Thyatira, William, Wil, Thomas, Jack, Pat, Chris, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.

* * *

It was a long way from home.

Letting out a series of warbles and clicks as it drifted along the path that wound its way up the side of the ice-covered mountain, the Ghost did its level best to ignore the growing number of Fallen that had been stalking it for the past fifteen point six seven miles. There was nothing it could do about them; it wasn't equipped with weapons and had no escort despite the importance of its current mission. Accordingly, there were only two possible outcomes to its journey: it would accomplish its goal - gaining the means to defend itself in the process - or be killed like dozens of other Ghosts had in the last few months alone.

Hopefully the former. Unlike some of its more philosophical siblings, it had no real desire to experience being taken offline, either temporarily or permanently.

Swooping around a bend in the path, the Ghost let out a series of clicks as it drifted to a stop at the base of a staircase that appeared to have been crafted solely from ice. It was quite obviously not a natural formation; the stairs were perfectly formed and showed no signs of weathering, while the staircase itself had intricately detailed balusters and handrails. But even if some human had gotten it into their head to construct something like this, nobody had been out this far since the Golden Age. It couldn't have been new, but showed no signs of age. Mystifying. Fascinating.

Distracting.

Turning its attention to the landing at the top of the stairs, the Ghost jerked backward in surprise. It wasn't alone. Wrapped up in the impossibility of the existence of a castle made of ice, it had somehow managed to miss the building's thirty-foot tall guardian. It was… vaguely humanoid but unlike anything the Ghost had ever seen before, with a smooth white body, two shadowy pits where its eyes should be, a cavernous maw studded with glistening blue teeth, and lethal-looking claws made of the same substance as its teeth. Most definitely not one of the Fallen or the Hive, nor was it at all similar to anything ever fielded by the Vex or Cabal. After gazing down at the Ghost inscrutably for several seconds, the being grunted and turned away, making its way into glittering citadel that it had been guarding and leaving the massive doors open behind it.

Was it an invitation, or a trap? Given that the Fallen were creeping ever closer with each passing second… did the Ghost really have a choice?

Floating its way up the stairs, the Ghost passed through the massive doors and into the ice castle proper. Releasing a pulse of energy so that it could map its new surroundings, it wasn't terribly surprised when it detected a faint source of Light somewhere above it. After all, something had to have drawn it to this odd construct. What was surprising, though, was that the guardian being seemed to know why the Ghost was there, grunting loudly and gesturing up at another door located at the top of an even more intricate series of ice stairs that wound their way along the inner wall of the room. Fallen behind it, a strange creature before it… what did it have to lose by ascending further into the castle? "Thanks. I don't suppose you can take care of the Fallen for me too, can you?"

"For. My. Queen. Not. You."

The words were slow, labored, barely coherent growls… but enough to get the message across. The Ghost bobbed once in thanks before turning and whizzing up the stairs, leaving the strange creature behind as it stomped its way back out the castle doors. Finding itself confronted with a closed pair of doors, the Ghost paused for a second before noticing a small hole and diving through it. On the other side? More stairs. "I have a feeling that my Guardian was very fit before they died."

Thanks to its ability to hover, the Ghost made short work of the towering spiral staircase, eventually emerging into a massive chamber opened up onto a balcony that overlooked the mountainside. It never made it as far as the balcony, though, its attention firmly fixed on the icy catafalque that stood in the center of the room. Or rather, on the skeleton that lay atop the glistening bier, pulsing faintly with the Light that the Ghost had been tracking for so many hours. "There you are. Rise and shine!"

* * *

"Guardian… Guardian? Eyes up, Guardian!"

Did she have to? Hadn't she earned her rest?

Evidently not, given that the voice continued to try and prod her to full wakefulness. Groaning, she opened her eyes and pushed herself up onto her elbows… at which point her eyes went wide. She was young again. And blue. Which was more unbelievable, she couldn't quite say. She was also naked, something that she solved with a scowl and a wave of her hand, garbing herself in the icy blue gown that she'd worn most every day since the full awakening her of her powers. Not only did it serve to preserve her modesty, but it also hid her new blue-tinged skin from her eyes, allowing her to shift her focus to the strange grey and black object that was hovering nearby. At least for a few seconds. Then came a roar of pain and anger from downstairs, and she threw her legs over the side of her funeral bier before rising to her feet. "Marshmallow!"

"Wait! You don't know what you're… you don't even have a weapon!"

While the revelation that the floating spiked ball could talk was intriguing, neither that nor the wisdom that it tried to impart were enough to deter her from her course of action. Whatever had brought her back from the dead had done an incredibly good job; there wasn't even the faintest of aches in her legs as she raced across the room and threw herself onto the grand staircase's handrail, sliding along the slick ice far faster than her legs would have been able to carry her down the steps. When she reached the end, she nimbly dismounted and hit the ground running. Having long since discovered and mastered the full extent of her powers, it was actually easier to melt the doors between her and Marshmallow than open them; she could easily recreate them when this was all over. A mere four loping strides later, she was upon the battle and utterly out of her element.

Her enemies were many, varied, and completely unfamiliar to her… because they weren't human. Technically she probably wasn't either anymore, given that humans weren't blue, but whatever she was facing was even more visibly inhuman than she was. They didn't even appear to be a single species; she quickly noted three distinctly different types among them. The most common were floating red metal… things… roughly the size of the large soup pots used in the palace's kitchen that spat bolts of blue energy at Marshmallow, digging deep pits in his body whenever they connected. Almost as numerous were two-armed humanoids with glowing blue eyes and a strip of spiky hair atop their heads; it wasn't until they opened fire on Marshmallow as well that she realized that they came in two subtypes. Two-thirds of them were armed with a small weapon that created the same energy bolts as their airborne counterparts while the rest bore a larger weapon that fired quartets of burning orange energy. The final variety had only one representative, hidden away near the back of the seething mass of creatures: four-armed to match its four glowing eyes, bearing heavier armor than its two-armed companions and holding a sword in each of its upper arms as it regarded Marshmallow warily.

What were they? She had no idea. But whatever they were, they were hurting her Marshmallow and that couldn't be allowed to continue. Hopping up onto the balcony railing, she steeled herself for the coming conflict as she slid down to the ground floor of her castle. As she closed the distance between herself and her soon to be prey, she evaluated her options. While her generals had ensured that she was more than capable when it came to melee combat, attempting to engage her opponents in a sword fight when they had ranged weapons would be the height of stupidity. And so instead she opted to open this battle like she had so many others: with a barrage of lethally sharp ice spikes.

Evidently armor hadn't advanced terribly much in… however long she'd been dead… because enemy after enemy went down as her spikes pierced vital portions of their anatomy. The strange floating red things were more nimble than their ground-bound companions, but even they died when she shoved a spike through their glowing orange eye. By the time the last spike of her second barrage arrived at its destination, only one opponent remained: the four-armed creature, which was apparently protected by some sort of magic of its own. Each time one of her spikes got near it, a glowing blue shield would pop into existence and push the ice off course. Still, nineteen out of twenty enemies dead wasn't terrible as far as results went.

As she studied the last creature left standing, pondering how to take down something that her ice couldn't touch, she realized that her fingers were tingling. Looking down, she discovered tiny tendrils of what appeared to be lightning crawling over her digits and arcing between them. They didn't hurt any more than using her ice powers did… but what did they mean? Rudely torn from her thoughts by her opponent lunging at her with a sword in each hand, she let out a shriek of surprise and thrust her hands out. Her intention was to release a massive blast of ice that would drive the thing back if nothing else. What actually happened was… quite shocking.

Heh. Shocking. Lightning pun.

The bolts of lightning that emerged from her hands were brief and wild, but evidently more than sufficient to reduce her attacker to a smoking, twitching heap on the floor. As she resumed staring down at her blue hands, twisting them this way and that, the strange talking spiked ball finally managed to catch back up with her. "So you're a Warlock, then… but Stormcallers can't affect ice the way you do. What… are you?"

Ambling on over to where Marshmallow was grumbling under his breath as he examined his wounds, she channeled a bit of her power into him to replace the snow that had been burned away by the blue energy bolts before looking over at the ball. "I am Elsa Agðasdóttir, of Arendelle. And I'm the Snow Queen."


End file.
